Advocates of ground-level rail pitch their plan to lawmakers

With rail facing its gravest fiscal crisis yet, a local cadre that once advocated bringing the elevated transit system down to street level in town is reviving that idea — and it’s taking its pitch directly to state lawmakers.

The coalition of architects, planners and environmental activists argued in its “Salvage the Rail” report released last week that taxpayers would save between $2.9 billion and $4.2 billion if rail officials redesign the system to run on the road as light rail past Middle Street, instead of building its elevated concrete pathway into urban Honolulu. The system might also start running about five years earlier, according to the report.

City and rail leaders reject those savings estimates outright and call the campaign misleading — but they’re not the audience that the coalition is trying to reach.

The revival of the dormant “at-grade” proposal comes as the Legislature once more debates what to do about rail, and whether to rescue the 20-mile, 21-station project with another extension of the general excise tax surcharge. The project now faces an approximately $3 billion shortfall, based on city estimates.

Rail officials continue to say they don’t know the final price tag.

“This is such a massive … and expensive project on the backs of about 900,000 residents,” said Hawaii’s Thousand Friends Executive Director Donna Wong. “So if we can present the legislators with a less expensive alternative … then this is as good an opportunity as any.”

The nonprofit environmental advocacy group has teamed with the Honolulu Transit Task Force — a group of about a dozen planners and architects who formerly pushed for street-level rail as members of the American Institute of Architects Honolulu. Several years ago, AIA Honolulu released its own renderings of rail’s guideway running along Nimitz Highway, showing its substantial impacts to views and the corridor along the Honolulu Harbor waterfront.

This year, however, AIA has opted not to participate in the push for street-level rail in town. It declined after it polled members last fall and found “there was not … a largely agreed-upon position,” said AIA Honolulu Executive Vice President Abigail Mundell.

“This particular issue was not one we felt we could speak on,” Mundell said Tuesday. “We just decided at this point, we made our statement and we have other things going on in our community.”

That hasn’t stopped the members of the Transit Task Force, who continue to advocate from outside of the AIA. They’ve visited all 76 legislators’ offices, according to the group’s spokesman, Scott Wilson, a residential architect.

It’s not clear yet whether their efforts at the state Capitol are gaining traction. Nonetheless, when rail officials told senators last week that the “Salvage the Rail” report was off-base, Sen. Laura Thielen (D, Hawaii Kai-Waimanalo-Kailua) wondered why the city couldn’t still explore the street-level option on its own.

“Wouldn’t it be good to do further investigation?” Thielen, one of four senators to vote against the last extension in 2015, asked Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Deputy Executive Director Brennon Morioka on Tuesday during a hearing of the Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs Committee. “Do you think it’s appropriate to dismiss it out of hand when we’re looking at the costs of the project now and you’re coming to the Legislature requesting a perpetuity GET extension?”

The city faces an April 30 deadline to submit its “recovery plan” on rail to its federal partners and detail how it plans to deal with the budget problem.

Costs debated

Hawaii’s Thousand Friends and the Honolulu Transit Task Force estimate rail would cost some $7.2 billion to build if the final 5 miles descend to the street. That includes the groups’ estimate of $66 million to change the system’s 80 train cars so they could travel on both the guideway and the street, some $10 million for a “technical memorandum” to the project’s environmental impact statement, and $139 million to redesign the final stretch to run at street level.

Rail officials often tout that the city’s driverless trains will save on labor costs. The “Salvage the Rail” report contends it would still be cheaper to operate the partially at-grade system. To make its plan work on city streets, the coalition calls for the system’s four-car trains to be split into two-car trains that would run more frequently.

In 2013, HART opted to debut the system with four-car trains instead of two-car ones, saying the move would save millions of dollars and offer better customer service. Documents later revealed that the system’s operator, Ansaldo Honolulu JV, had estimated the move would actually cost the city an additional $4 million.

An author of the “Salvage the Rail” report, Douglas Tilden, used to be chief architect for InfraConsult, a HART consultant. He quit the project in frustration after about a year “after his criticisms and recommendations were ignored,” the report states.

Ideas called unrealistic

City and HART officials say such a switch to at-grade light rail would be unrealistic, unworkable and far more complex and disruptive to city streets than what proponents have represented. Mayor Kirk Caldwell last week called the idea “wishful thinking.”

HART dismissed virtually all of the “Salvage the Rail” conclusions. The report underestimates how much it would cost to build and run rail at street level, the agency stated in an email. It also fails to fully consider impacts to traffic, safety or the archaeological considerations of so much added digging along the line.

“At-grade light rail cannot deliver fast, frequent, safe and reliable transit service for Oahu,” the HART email said. “This is the primary reason why the Honolulu City Council, after carefully considering all the options, chose a grade-separated system.”

Caldwell said last week, “It won’t move the same (number) of people and you’re in traffic, you’re in gridlock once you come off-grade to grade.”

The “Salvage the Rail” report, however, points to other U.S. cities with light rail such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver and Houston to argue that Honolulu shouldn’t dismiss the idea, given the steep financial problems its elevated system has faced during the past two years. The Transit Task Force plans to hold a symposium on light rail in the coming weeks, as the Legislature continues its deliberations.

Report Modifying Hart for Street Level Operation in Downtown Honolulu January 2017 Rev Feb 1 by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd

HART's response to Salvage the Rail by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd